Tory school plans will raid budgets, union warns

Tuesday 20 November 2007 10.05 EST
First published on Tuesday 20 November 2007 10.05 EST

Conservative plans to provide an extra 220,000 school places would effectively mean a cut in education funding, teachers warned today.

The Conservative green paper, Raising the bar, closing the gap, proposes to redirect 15% of the existing Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme's £9.3bn budget to pay for new academies and school places.

But the National Union of Teachers said this amounted to cutting school budgets. Steve Sinnott, the general secretary, said: "Raiding the BSF budget to fund unnecessary places will, in effect, impose a massive cut on funding for already-promised new schools and school repairs.

"The result of such a proposal will be broken promises and unmet need. These proposals are a classic case of putting ideology before meeting need," he said.

Schools minister Jim Knight agreed, saying a £4.5bn cut from the BSF programme would put at risk hundreds of school building projects. "As people study the detail they will want to know which areas and which schools the axe will fall on," he said.

"There is no bar on new schools opening in areas where there are surplus places. But stripping local authorities of their role in coordinating education means that the Tories are attacking their own local councils, who would find it very difficult under these proposals to plan the improvement of their schools in a coherent way."

Tory proposals, announced today, would see the introduction reading tests for six-year-olds, make it easier for parents to set up schools and provide more than 220,000 new school places.

The schools minister, Lord Adonis, said government investment was already allowing for the recruitment of thousands of teachers and would see 400 new secondary schools built by 2011. He pointed out that the number of schools where fewer than 25% of pupils obtained five good GCSEs had fallen from 616 a decade ago to 26 now.

"In places like London, where we have seen the biggest improvements in recent years, the number of parents choosing to educate their children outside their own local authority has been falling," he said.

"We want parents to get more involved in schools and the first parent-promoted school opened in Lambeth in September with our support. And we will support other groups of parents who are interested in setting up their own schools."

The Liberal Democrat education spokesman, David Laws, pointed out that the former shadow education minister, David Willetts, upset many of his colleagues when he said earlier this year how school selection could hit children from the most disadvantaged backgrounds.

"While the Tories talk about targeting extra funding on the most disadvantaged pupils, it seems that no new money is actually involved," he said.

Laws added that his party was committed to bringing the levels of funding for the most disadvantaged 1.5 million children up to levels in the private sector.

Yesterday, the Lib Dems leadership contender, Nick Clegg, pledged to put education at the centre of the party's policies if he was elected leader.

The Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) dismissed as "impractical and unnecessary" Tory plans to introduce setting by ability for students in all subjects.

John Dunford , the ASCL general secretary, said: "Dividing students into ability groups in all subjects, with lots of small groups, would be hugely impractical, not to mention expensive and unnecessary.

"I cannot see how separating students by ability in art, music or religious education will help to raise standards. The reality is that the vast majority of secondary schools already group students into ability sets in maths, English, science and other subjects in which it is appropriate."

Dunford said it was "hugely ironic and disappointing that a political party which says that it wants to free heads from government control is telling them how to organise their schools in this detail".

He added that the number of admissions appeals cases did not indicate there were too few good state schools places. "It means that parents have been given false expectations of their ability to choose any school they want for their children," he said.

"Parents already have the power to set up schools but, in actual fact, very few have taken it up."

Steve Sinnott, the general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, agreed that the plans would create more prescription for schools rather than more freedom.

"Deceptively simple proposals such as imposing setting and streaming and a one-size-fits-all approach to teaching reading may appear attractive to the Conservative party central office but they have little connection with good practice and what works in schools."

He added that "reheating their failed grant maintained schools policy" would not achieve a good local school for every child. "Instead undermining planned school places will be chaotic, costly and sew insecurity in the vulnerable communities the proposals are aimed at."

He urged the Tories to refocus on supporting teachers in the classroom and to fulfil their early promise that they would act to enhance the confidence and autonomy of the teaching profession.

Philip Parkin, the Professional Association of Teachers' general secretary, said the proposals were "disappointingly familiar".

"They seem to be variations on the government's twin obsessions of academies and testing," he said.

"We would like to see greater investment in all schools - not just in a few so-called flagships - and a greater emphasis on the professional skills of teachers and support staff rather than yet more tests."

The reading target failed to take into account the different speeds at which children develop, he said. "We don't want to see children labelled as 'failures' for not meeting an artificial target dreamt up by politicians to make headlines.

"Early education is about preparing the ground for young children to develop skills such as reading when they are ready and able to do so."